Quotes and passages on charity

Charity. To love human beings insofar
as they are nothing. That is,
to love them as God does.

Simone Weil

I believe when you integrate charity in your craft and not just think of the fame and riches it would entitle you with, you will feel this true sense of fulfillment. Carry on your mission, of where God destined you to be--to use His gifts in good ways and not just for yourself. Elizabeth E. Castillo

While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary. Chinua Achebe Anthills of the Savannah

Charity, if you have the means, is a personal choice, but charity which is expected or compelled is simply a polite word for slavery. Terry Goodkind The Pillars of Creation

When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding the solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is no solution to poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor. Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about the lives of the poor. Charity appeases our consciences. Muhammad Yunu Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty

A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with
the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.

Jack London

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Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit
of charity than the consistent omissions of a government
frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The Hebrew word for "charity," tzedakah, simply means "justice"
and as this suggests, for Jews, giving to the poor is no optional
extra but an essential part of living a just life.

Peter Singer
The Life You Can Save:
Acting Now to End World Poverty

Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible.
Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be
desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright
prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue
of hope exists only in earthquake and eclipse. It is true that there is a thing
crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but
charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving
who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for
them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require
the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to
exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases
to be reasonable it begins to be useful.

G.K. Chesterton
Heretics

Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, when I give I give myself.

Walt Whitman

Charity even for one person does not make sense except in terms
of an effort to love all Creation in response to the Creator's love for it.

Wendell Berry
The Art of the Commonplace:
The Agrarian Essays

Charity is never lost; it may meet with ingratitude, or be of no
service to those on whom it was bestowed, yet it ever does
a work of beauty and grace upon the heart of the giver.

Conyers Middleton

Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.

George Sand

The charity that hastens to proclaim its good deeds
ceases to be charity, and is only pride and ostentation.

William Hutton

One important aspect of justice, Jose Miranda reminds us, involves the
restoration of what has been stolen. Giving food to the hungry or
clothing to the naked is not a charitable handout but an exercise in
simple justice--restoring to the poor what is rightfully theirs,
what has been taken from them unjustly.

Robert McAfee Brown

Our prayers for others flow more easily than those for ourselves.
This shows we are made to live by charity.

C.S. Lewis

It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.

Mother Teresa

Love is wise; hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more
and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each
other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say
things that we don't like. We can only live together in that way.
But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn
a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely
vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.

Bertrand Russell

Never hesitate to give aid where you feel there is sore and pressing
need, for fear you will be left in want yourself. You will not be. This
does not mean that indiscriminate charity is commendable. It does
not mean that you should lend money to everyone who asks, or lift
and carry the burdens of everyone who is ready to lean upon you.
It is as wrong to encourage the man addicted to the vice of borrowing,
as the one with the vice of alcohol or drugs.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Heart of the New Thought

My father used to buy simple goods from poor people at high prices,
even though he did not need them. Sometimes he even used to pay
extra for them. I got concerned by this act and asked him why does
he do so?
My father replied, "It is a charity wrapped with dignity, my child."

unattributed

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The life of a person consists not in seeing visions and in
dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Every good act is charity. Our true wealth hereafter is
the good that we do in this world to our fellows.

Moliere

Charity is neither weak nor blind. It is essentially prudent,
just, temperate and strong.

Thomas Merton

Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.

John D. Rockefeller

I think it's important that we give back to society and our fellow
human regardless of our professions. We all need help at times.
And when we support each other, we're all a little stronger.

Rhonda Hopkins

There is only one way of being charitable to another
and that is quietly, with no strings attached.

Shantidasa

One should never expect any other reward from charity
than the satisfaction it gives.

Darryl F. Zanuch

Expect no reward for an act of charity. Expecting something in return
leads to a scheming mind.

Kyong Ho

There are two kinds of charity, remedial and preventive.
The former is often injurious in its tendency; the
latter is always praiseworthy and beneficial.

Tryon Edwards

The charitable person has found the path of salvation. He or she
is like a person who plants a sapling and thereby has
shade, the flowers, and the fruit in future years.

the Buddha

The charity that hastens to proclaim its good deeds ceases to
be charity, and is only pride and ostentation.

William Hutton

The charities of life are worth more than all ceremonies.
Charity is that which equals all the other commandments.

The Talmud